No Wonder She Didn’t Get The Joke

So my beautiful, athletic, and culinary wife said in the course of the conversation, “Obviously, I can cook.”

To which I reparted, much like William Powell, I thought: “That’s what Comte said.”

And she didn’t get it.

Of course she did not. As I am twenty-some years beyond my intro to Sociology course, I confused Auguste Comte, founder of sociology and positivism, with Cesare Lombroso, founder of anthropological criminology, whose doctrines implied that criminality is inherited and that you can tell a criminal by the way he looks.

Hence, “That’s what Comte said,” makes no sense, but “That’s what Lombroso said,” now that’s quality sociologist humor. Because she said “Obviously, I am a good cook,” as though one could tell by the spacing of her eyes or the curve of her cheeks that she was a good cook.